'Women have long hair and short brains," says the old Albanian proverb. And it has been much in use lately by the unreconstructed men of Kosovo, responding to the news that a woman is standing for president in the country's first ever general election - and that she could win.

A doctor and women's activist, Flora Brovina has been put forward by the usually macho Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK), and her presence has set the campaign alight, with men and women split over their voting choice in the poll this Saturday. But the 52-year-old's candidacy is no election stunt. The most celebrated woman in Kosovo, who spent two years in prison under the Milosevic regime, her humanitarian work has won recognition internationally, including the United Nations' Millennium Peace Prize for Women. "They call me the second Mother Theresa," she says, although Brovina has mixed her humanitarianism with politics, unlike the original, who also hailed from Kosovo.

Born in 1949, she was brought up in a family of women, mostly by her grandmother, who was arrested fighting against the Nazis. "She taught me to look forward, look straight and know what I want. I was brought up to believe that I had to make sacrifices for the freedom of Kosovo." That this woman, who has never held a gun, decided to lend her support to the party which fought the war has surprised some people. "All the parties asked me to be on their list, but only with the PDK have I found the civil tolerance, the will to move forward and the determination to co-operate with other parties," she retorts.

It was during these difficult times that Brovina came into her own. Slobodan Milosevic, the Yugoslav president, created apartheid in Kosovo, throwing Albanians out of government jobs and not allowing them to use the public services. The Albanian response was to set up a parallel society which looked after itself, funded by the diaspora. Brovina set up clinics and hospitals in private houses. "Albanian women were not even allowed to have their babies in hospital," she explains. "We were told they were giving birth to terrorists."

Knowing that hospitals only scraped the surface of dealing with the health problems of this largely rural country, she also ran first aid courses for students. In 1992, she transformed her medical work into a political movement for change, founding the Albanian League of Women, which campaigned for social equality. When the Kosovo Liberation Army began to take on the Serbs in the late 1990s it was Brovina who set up the field hospitals to treat the wounded. But the violence was soon to catch up with her. She was arrested in 1999 during the Nato bombing and for weeks was subjected to physical and psychological torture, including beatings and mock executions. "I did not think I would live. I survived by not thinking about it." She was put on trial for terrorism and sentenced to 12 years' imprisonment.

But Brovina was released two years later, after international pressure, and returned home a heroine, immediately setting up a centre for orphans of the war, funded by Oxfam, and returning to her first love - paediatrics.

Sitting in her ordinary apartment on the ground floor of a municipal block in Pristina, she contemplates her next possible role. "I understand the real problems and I want to integrate everyone, not exclude them."

If she wins, that will only be the first clash with the real rulers of Kosovo - the UN, who are due to remain in the area indefinitely. On the vexed question of independence, she is unequivocal: "I would like to be the one to declare independence for my country."

She is not only admired, but loved, in Kosovo because there is so little of the grande dame about her. While she might be driven by the future of the people of her country, she also worries about the surplus pounds she has put on since her release from prison, and apologises for the state of her hair as the constant power cuts make washing it difficult.

Whether she wins the presidency or not is largely dependent on the female vote, and it is difficult to forecast a result in a country which is having its first general election, and where lying to opinion pollsters is standard.

Brovina is also a published poet - her first volume was published in 1973 - and she mixes easily in intellectual circles, but it is clear as she talks that it is the ordinary women of Kosovo who inspire her. "I don't want to stand and give speeches, I want to go into the crowd and meet the people, the women," she says. "I hope that by standing for president I can give them a voice."